Goodbye White Hart Lane: an iconic stadium remembered by those who knew it best

Goodbye White Hart Lane: an iconic stadium remembered by those who knew it best

A general view of White Hart Lane stadium looking towards the West Stand and Paxton Road end as Tottenham Hotspur take on West Bromwich Albion on 30 October 1965.
Photograph: Gerry Cranham/Offside

As Tottenham Hotspur prepare to play their last game at the ground on Sunday, 118 years after the first one, we speak to a current and former player, the club historian and a fan about their memories of the stadium

Main image:
A general view of White Hart Lane stadium looking towards the West Stand and Paxton Road end as Tottenham Hotspur take on West Bromwich Albion on 30 October 1965.
Photograph: Gerry Cranham/Offside

The historian

John Fennelly, Tottenham Hotspur historian, pictured at White Hart Lane in April 2017. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Observer

According to legend, the cockerel and ball that sits on top of the East Stand, having been relocated from the West Stand in 1958, was full of gold. I don’t know how it got started but one bloke was sufficiently convinced to climb up and try to steal it. He was arrested. That would have been in the 1940s or 1950s.

By the 1980s, the Tottenham chairman, Irving Scholar, decided to see for himself. The original copper piece was cast by William James Scott, who had played for the club in the old amateur days, and it went up in 1909. I was a reporter on the local paper when Scholar got it down and opened it up. There were a couple of photographers with us and we smiled when we saw what was inside – a soaking wet, old handbook.

The nine-foot high cockerel is cleaned while the stands are improved and enlarged in July 1934; and in situ on top of the roof of the East Stand in March 1988. Photograph: R. Wesley/Fox Photos/Getty Images; Tim Reder/Offside

It’s amazing how these sort of things gather momentum but it is the little stories about White Hart Lane that I love. Each one of them adds a layer of character to the place. When I first started working on the local paper, I used to interview the old members of staff, who had been at the club since before the second world war. They used to tell me about an old boy who was employed to walk down the tunnel and bang two bin‑lids together to drive away the pigeons.

There was also a thing about people bringing cockerels to the matches – in the 1960s, I think – because the cockerel was on the club’s badge. They’d just let them go. Can you imagine that these days? There was an old geezer on the ground staff, who was an animal lover, and he would round up the cockerels and take them home. At dawn every day, these bloody things would be crowing away and the club would get hammered with complaints from the neighbours.

During the first world war, the ministry of war took over the stadium and the East Stand was used as a factory to make gas masks, gunnery and protection equipment, while in world war two the stand was a morgue because the blitz happened round here. Football carried on during that war and the club would have games stopped when a doodlebug went across. They’d wait until it had gone and you’d hear it explode somewhere else and then they’d carry on. It was incredible.

British soldiers on leave, queuing outside White Hart Lane, before a match between Arsenal and Chelsea in March 1940. Spurs and Arsenal had to groundshare at White Hart Lane as Highbury had been requisitioned as an ARP (Air Raid Precautions) centre. Photograph: H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In the second world war, the idea was to keep things as normal as possible on the home front. Wherever soldiers were based, they could guest for the nearest club. Our teams during the war had hardly any Spurs players in them and the club might even make an announcement to the fans – “Can anyone fill in at left-back?”

People used to say that there were ghosts at the stadium. I don’t believe in all of that but so many people tell you about them. One evening, I remember sitting in the office at the Red House on the High Road – where the club had started – and something collapsed behind me. It sounded like the whole ceiling had come down but, when I turned round, there was nothing there. I’ve seen doors open, seemingly, by themselves. It’s strange.

My first game at White Hart Lane was in 1966. My dad took me and we lost to Burnley. We watched it from The Shelf, which was the most famous part of the ground. It was so unusual to have a terrace at a second level running along one of the sides, rather than behind a goal.

I remember our FA Youth Cup final against Coventry City in 1969-70. The two legs finished level on aggregate and so it went to a replay, which was drawn. We won the second replay 1-0. Graeme Souness played for us and he didn’t get a medal because he had been sent off in the first match. They let him play and then didn’t give him a medal. How offensive was that?

After that, I’ll never forget our win over the league champions, Leeds United, in 1975, which we needed to avoid relegation. It was the game in which Alfie Conn sat on the ball and upset both sides. Incredibly, I missed the 1984 Uefa Cup final win over Anderlecht because I was on holiday but I was there in 1972 when we won the same trophy against Wolverhampton Wanderers. As with Anderlecht, the second leg was at the Lane, which made it even more special.

It is amazing to think how much has changed since the club was formed in 1882 and they played on Tottenham Marshes and Northumberland Park before the move to White Hart Lane in 1899. But what is great for me about the new stadium being built on the existing site is that it remains the proverbial goal-kick from where it all started.

The Spurs defence clear their lines during their 2-1 defeat to Sunderland in January 1913 (top); the new stadium taking shape in April 2017 as the current ground hosts Arsenal for the last time. Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Tom Jenkins for the Observer

The legend

Cliff Jones pictured at home, surrounded by memorabilia from his 19-year career. Jones spent 10 of them, from 1958 to 1968, at Tottenham and made 378 appearances, scoring 159 goals. Photograph: David Levene for the Observer

I will never forget the look on the faces of the Gornik Zabrze players. They were looking around and saying: “What on earth is this?” They were intimidated and you could say that they were a goal down before we kicked off. It was the first ever European Cup tie at White Hart Lane – in 1961 – and we absolutely slaughtered them. It finished 8-1 and it was down to the crowd. They just picked us up and said: “Go.” When you played on the continent, you had running tracks around the playing areas and so the spectators would be 15-20 yards back. But at White Hart Lane they were right, smack on top of you.

The tunnel, in those days, was at the bottom end of the ground and we would come up and out of it. When we did, we’d see the East Stand, which was always chock-a-block, and it was just the roar that went up and the sense of expectation. I always used to walk out behind John White – that was my superstition. They were special times, particularly the European nights.

Gornik had beaten us 4-2 in the first leg over in Poland and they were a very good side. Most of them were in the Polish national team. But Bill Nicholson got us right up for the second leg and that night I think we would have beaten any team that had ever been or ever will be. Above any game I played at White Hart Lane, I remember that one.